Soaps, detergents and abrasives have long been used to cleanse the skin on various portions of the body. One practical disadvantage to their use, however, is the fairly large amounts of water required for cleansing purposes and for the removal of residual cleansing agents. More recently, waterless cleansers have come into vogue. However, they have the disadvantage of leaving a residual film upon the surface of the skin after cleansing.
There is a great need for a convenient means for cleansing the skin which will efficiently cleanse, which does not require large volumes of water for cleansing, and which will not result in a residual film being left on the surface of the skin after cleansing. Such a skin cleanser is particularly useful wherever water is not readily available as for example when traveling or camping. On the other hand, the use of copious amounts of water may not always be practical. For example, when practicing personal hygiene in the vaginal, anal or perianal regions of the body, the present practice is to use dry, absorbent toilet paper. The use of copious amounts of water, as in a bidet, which is widely practiced in many parts of Europe and South America, has never received widespread acceptance in this country. The use of absorbent paper only does not always result in an efficient cleansing of the body leaving a tendency to smear rather than effecting a good cleansing effect upon the surrounding areas. Furthermore, irrespective of how soft the paper may be, vigorous rubbing frequently produces an abrasive effect which bruises and disrupts the sensitive tissues in this area, thereby increasing the likelihood for subsequent bacterial infection to occur.
I have discovered certain novel, aqueous surfactant compositions with particular physical properties that readily enable the preparation of stable non-pressurized, aerated foams. These foams possess good cleansing power and detergency, are mild and non-irritating, and leave little, if any, residual film remaining on the cleansed surface of the skin. These compositions are homogeneous in nature, can be structured to be wet or dry, stable or fastbreaking, and are esthetically suitable for use in a wide variety of personal care products.
One of the principal purposes of this invention is to describe the preparation of an aqueous skin cleansing composition which will produce a usable foam from a hand-held squeezable, foam dispensing device.
Another object of the present invention is to provide liquid compositions which can be varied so as to produce uniform wet or dry foams.
Another object of this invention is to provide foam-producing compositions which produce relatively stable or collapsible foams. A preferred embodiment of this invention is to provide skin cleansing foams of low density that are pressure-sensitive which readily break or collapse under slight pressure.
Another object of this invention is to provide a foam-producing composition whose wetting characteristics are such as to enable its use as a cleansing agent in conjunction with disposable facial or toilet tissue and not cause the tissue to tear and break.
Another object of this invention is to provide a foam which is mild and non-irritating and which does not require the use of propellants, thereby avoiding the danger of explosion or corrosion of the container.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a foam producing composition such that if placed in a hand-held, foam dispensing device having deformable walls, the amount of force required to produce the foam is not excessive and is readily usable by the average person.
These objectives as well as others apparent to those skilled in the art are obtained with the foam-producing compositions described herein.